Welcome to Module 1.1! Today you will connect with a local outdoor space and the birds that are there. You will also have the chance to see birds as a way to assess the health of your local environment. Begin by watching the introduction video.
Module 1.1 Overview
- Engage with an audio clip of sunrise around the world.
- Explore with a map and listen to regional audio clips taken from locations on that map.
- Explain how diversity leads to healthier communities and can be used to measure the health of communities.
- Elaborate by counting the number of birds in a recording near you, and practicing a listening exercise in a safe outdoor space.
- Evaluate knowledge by reporting the information gathered in the elaborate steps. Your findings should also be reported back to your teacher in the format they define.
Module 1.1 Learning Targets
- I can gain knowledge about birds around the world.
- I can understand the relationship between diversity and community health.
- I can create a sound map.
- I can record and report biological data.
Materials
- Online access to the SOA website (Smartphone capable), journal or blank paper, 1 or 2 pencils
- Optional; coloring utensils, a timer
Engage
Play the audio clip below of sunrise around the world.
Discussion or Written Response
What do you notice about the songs?
What do you wonder?
What does it remind you of?
You can write your answers somewhere that you can remember them.
Explore
Look at the map and play clips from each place in the playlist below it. Count the number of different songs/ bird sounds you heard in each place. Record data either digitally or in journal, How many bird songs do you hear in the location nearest to you?.
Discussion or written response: What do you notice about the songs in each place? What do you wonder? Was the number of songs different in each place? Why might that be?
Explain
In this section, we will outline some vocabulary that might be helpful in the lesson, as well as some theory and background on the principles used.
Vocabulary
- Community – A group of organisms who are dependent on one another and have shared purpose. This is often used in a way that only refers to human communities. However in reality by the definition above would include all living things.
- Diversity – A variety or different types of things.
- Biodiversity – Bio is greek for life, as used in biography (life story) or biology (life studies). Combined with diversity this means different kinds of living things.
Check out this NorthBay video of Ms. Ashley discussing the importance of biodiversity.
Background Knowledge
Communities are complicated and hard to define or understand. An example of a community in your life might be your family or extended family. Think about how hard it would be to describe each person and their relationship to each other person, and the family as a whole. Typically speaking, the more diversity there is in a community the healthier it is. Schools that include all kinds of people in their student body and staff have a healthier culture and ability to generate new ideas. So more diversity means more health.
Just like we expect to see lots of diversity in healthy human communities, we can expect the same in nature. More biodiversity (different types of living things) in a community usually means it is healthier.
The scientist David Tilman and his colleagues conducted several studies in the early 1990’s in which they grew grassland plants in high and low diversity plant groups. Some plant groups included many different kinds (species) of plants and some only contained one species of plant. What they found was that plant groups (communities) that were more diverse actually grew larger as a whole, as different species took on different roles to help each other. Diverse plant groups were also better able to survive extreme conditions like flooding better than single species groups. In simpler terms biodiverse plant groups were more productive and more able to withstand hardship than non-diverse plant groups.
Later on these studies were expanded and found that the same principles operated at a larger scale. Communities of humans and other life that have more diversity also have cleaner water and air, are more resistant to flooding and drought, and have better access to food.
As a result of diversity being closely related to the health of communities it can be a simple way to indicate or measure the health of a community. We can measure the health of our own communities simply by counting and keeping track of how diverse it is.
In this module we will look to birds to help us assess the health of our local environmental community. We will be counting the number of different types (species) of birds seen or heard, and that number will be an indicator for us of the relative health of our environmental communities.
To summarize
- More diverse communities are more productive and resilient.
- Diversity is strongly related to overall community health.
- Diversity can be counted by us as an indicator of community health.
- We will count different species of birds to assess our own environmental community health.
Elaborate
Activity A – Find Regional Baseline Data (3-5 minutes)
Step 1: Gather the materials you need; 1 piece of paper, 1 or 2 pencils.
Step 2: Identify which Songs of Adaptation recording station is closest to you. Use the map to help you.
Step 3: Press play on the audio clip for your nearest Songs of Adaptation recording station. Make a tally or jot down how many different bird songs you hear in the recording (you will need this number later).
Activity B – Sound Mapping (4-6 minutes)
Step 1: Gather the materials you need; 1 piece of paper, 1 or 2 pencils
Optional materials; coloring utensils, a timer
Step 2: Watch the video below about how to create a sound map.
Step 3: Identify a study area: Work with an adult to find a location you can safely listen to sounds outside. This could include your backyard, stoop, or a window.
Step 4: Sit down in a comfortable and safe outdoor area. In the center of the blank paper put an X, this represents you. Sit quietly for 2 minutes and write down or draw every sound you hear all around you. Circle the ones that you think are birds.
Optional extension
Draw the location you visited on your sound map, if you want to.
Evaluate
Answer the following questions in your journal, and make sure you share them with your teacher too.
What city, state, country are you reporting from?
What SOA recording location is closest to you?
How many songs did you hear in the recording from the SOA station nearest to you?
How many sounds did you hear in your outdoor space?
What do you think the sounds in your outdoor space were?
How do you think they were made?
